Nancy Pelosi Wants to Take Back the Property. But She Faces a Much more Urgent Test.

WASHINGTON — As Congress barreled toward a government shutdown Thursday evening, Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Californian who has led House Democrats for 15 years, gathered her troops to urge them to vote no on a spending bill that would maintain the government open.

“We’re much better when we stick together,” 1 lawmaker recalled her saying, as she implored unity around demands that Republican leaders commit to a vote on a measure to defend young immigrants brought to the nation illegally as children.

But Democrats did not stick together 73 of them voted for the spending bill, making sure its passage, in spite of big-scale Republican defections that would have killed it. Ms. Pelosi now says she wanted it to pass all along.

“We had a fantastic bill we got almost everything,” she stated in an interview Friday, adding, “Republicans gave away the store.”

The mixed messages from the Democratic leader marked an additional turn in a political high-wire act that has become one particular of the longest running in Washington. At 77, Ms. Pelosi remains a dominant figure in the Democratic Celebration, its highest-ranking lady in the capital and the only lady ever to rise to Home speaker. She is also a polarizing figure — increasingly even with Democrats — and as the spending budget vote indicated, she might be losing what was once an iron grip.

As Congress turns to the difficult topic of immigration — the Senate is expected to start debate on the problem this week — some are questioning if Ms. Pelosi is the person to lead her party on an situation that goes to the heart of Democratic divisions in the era of President Trump.

Ms. Pelosi “didn’t have any cohesive message,” Representative Patrick T. McHenry, Republican of North Carolina and the chief deputy whip, told reporters. “She negotiated the deal. Her group was in on it. She acknowledges it.”

“And at the end, her team broke,” he mentioned. “So I see a fractured caucus on the other side.”

To liberals and minorities in the broad Democratic coalition, immigration and the defense of the young undocumented immigrants identified as Dreamers have turn into missions of resistance against a callous Trump administration. But to Democrats fighting to keep their handholds in the center of the country, a singular concentrate on immigration is politically problematic — if not suicidal. In her maneuvering on the issue, Ms. Pelosi has managed to displease some on both sides.

“We require to unite the agenda and unite the Democrats right now about a sturdy economic agenda,” said Representative Tim Ryan, Democrat of Ohio, who waged an unsuccessful bid in 2016 to replace Ms. Pelosi as leader.

Mr. Ryan, 44, is amongst a number of Residence Democrats who would like to see a younger generation of leaders take power. He and other folks say Ms. Pelosi’s focus on Dreamers — including her selection to commandeer the Residence floor for a lot more than eight hours on Wednesday to speak about their plight — was eclipsing the party’s economic message, spelling difficulty for centrist Democrats, especially those in red states and districts won by Mr. Trump.

“If you are going into a budget battle like this you cannot go in with just a million Dreamers,” Mr. Ryan mentioned. “You need to have the retired coal miners, the retired Teamsters. You need the groups that assistance the neighborhood well being clinics, the opiate coalition. They need to have all been collectively.”

Ms. Pelosi’s eight-hour soliloquy on Wednesday, at instances, provided a tableau that underscored the Democrats’ generational, and philosophical, divide. Arrayed behind her as she concluded her speech have been veteran female representatives: Zoe Lofgren of California, Nydia M. Velázquez of New York, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, a leading member of the Congressional Black Caucus. A new generation of Democrats was nowhere in camera view.

The females who stood by her see Ms. Pelosi, and her call to action on immigration, as essential to taking back the Home.

“She made a global statement to the America and the globe that who has been fighting for Dreamers? It has been the Democrats,” Ms. Jackson Lee stated. “And let me just say as a lady, this was a potent statement for what I think is once again going to be the year of the lady, because she took charge.”

And Ms. Pelosi herself shows no sign of relinquishing energy. As she looks ahead to November, she insists she is not driven by a desire to grow to be speaker once again — even as she defends her own functionality.

“I do not consider about it at all,” she mentioned, adding, “It’s an great energy, and I just want the Democrats to have the gavel. It does not have to be me, but I’m good at what I do.”

Ms. Pelosi was part of the bipartisan negotiations that led to the budget deal, which integrated $131 billion for Democratic priorities — such as public performs, children’s and veterans’ wellness programs and opioid abuse prevention — as nicely as an infusion of cash for hurricane-ravaged locations like Puerto Rico and Texas. She said she understood that, for many in her caucus, the deal was “too good” to vote against.

But the leader had also created personal commitments to the Dreamers, hundreds of thousands of whom have been shielded from deportation under an Obama-era system called DACA, for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Mr. Trump rescinded the program and gave Congress till early March to come up with a replacement. Ms. Pelosi and her fellow Democrats had promised the young immigrants that a measure to help them would be included in any spending deal — a guarantee she was not able to keep.

In staging her marathon monologue — the longest in much more than a century, according to the Property historian — and pressing for no votes on the spending bill, Ms. Pelosi hoped to stress Speaker Paul D. Ryan into scheduling a totally free and open debate on immigration, as Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, did in the Senate.

Mr. McConnell is providing the Senate a week to debate any immigration problem that senators want to bring up rather than place a measure on the floor, he has taken the extremely uncommon step of introducing a shell bill that senators might amend and shape as they see match.

In impact, he is enabling the Senate to construct an immigration bill from scratch no 1 has any idea how it will turn out.

Mr. Ryan has refused to comply with suit, although he has pledged to take up an immigration bill at some point, so long as it is one the president supports. And now that the spending bill has been adopted, Democrats in the Residence might have lost whatever leverage they had to demand protections for the Dreamers.

“We would like to have had a commitment from the speaker, but we’re not stopping,” Ms. Pelosi stated.

That is unlikely to mollify her critics on the left, who say she did not perform hard enough to force Speaker Ryan’s hand. Representative Luis V. Gutiérrez, Democrat of Illinois, said that if Ms. Pelosi had really wanted to take a stand to defend the Dreamers, she could have threatened to strip lawmakers of their committee assignments if they did not vote no on the budget deal.

“There’s all types of methods, I assure you, that leadership exercises its influence — the least of which are floor speeches,” Mr. Gutiérrez mentioned tartly.

Ms. Pelosi offered a terse reply: “It’s a hugely emotional time for all of us. I’m not going to respond to that.”

To her backers, Ms. Pelosi is still an indefatigable worker with a steel spine, a master legislator and a consummate fund-raiser, which is one particular explanation she retains her hold on energy. Her workplace says she has raised $643.5 million for Democrats considering that she entered leadership in 2002, although these numbers could not be verified independently.

But for Republicans, Ms. Pelosi is a convenient foil, easily portrayed as out of touch with Middle America. Polls have shown for years that far more Americans view her unfavorably than favorably.

Speaking at an occasion to market his tax bill last week in Ohio, Mr. Trump referred to as Ms. Pelosi Republicans’ “secret weapon,” and mocked her for calling bonuses provided to workers “crumbs” compared with the tax bill’s large benefits for corporate America.

“She’s a wealthy lady who lives in a massive, stunning house in California who desires to give all your funds away,” Mr. Trump stated. “And she talked about crumbs.”

Ms. Pelosi stands by the “crumbs” remark, saying Republicans have been taking it out of context. But it is already generating its way into 2018 political advertising, like an upcoming unique election in Pennsylvania. David Wasserman, who tracks House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said that in an era when voters are disaffected with Washington, it is difficult for Democrats to make the case that they are alter agents with Ms. Pelosi at the helm.

“There’s no query she’s been a hugely skilled legislative tactician for Democrats for decades she has also been really effective for Democrats raising cash and behind the scenes,” Mr. Wasserman said. “But if Home Democrats could do a single point to enhance their odds of winning the Home back, it would probably be to install leaders that no one’s ever heard of.”

Ms. Pelosi’s defenders say the attack advertisements are to be anticipated, and a sign of her strength.

“When you are the leader, you are going to be bullied and demagogued by the other side,” stated Representative Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, the chairman of the campaign committee charged with electing Democrats to the Residence. “There’s a reason why national Republican organizations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars attacking the leader all through the years. And they’re going to continue to.”